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Weapons that are suitable to damage an object is entirely up to the GM discretion. Myself, I would not think a greatsword (even adamantine) a suitable weapon to break down a door, of any sort, other than a paper one or bamboo?. A warhammer, more likely. Or a pick for stone/metal door. An argument about attacking the weak points of a door (ie hinges through the gap) might sway me, but it depends in the situation. I have a claymore and several large pieces of 3/4inch plywood that they can try to swing at if they really want to get the point.
If anyone insisted on it regardless, I’d let them try while keeping track of the weapon’s hardness and HP, and see which gives way first. The weapon is likely to come away damaged first. As for a ranged weapon? Only if it was magical, and then only if it has explosive or impact related enchantments.
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Just let them hack the g$*$+$n door with any weapon of their choosing. It's a lot better than the alternative, which is to force your martial characters to sit in the corner and do nothing while the wizard solves the problem in 6 seconds with a spell (in this case, Knock).
If damage is what they contribute to the party, then let them contribute. These characters, even at level 1, are extraordinary, not extra ordinary. They deserve some narrative freedom.
You might let the steel sword take the same damage it tries to inflict on the steel door... that solves the problem pretty fast.
Cutting your way through castle walls with adamantine falchions is standard tactic for mid level chars.
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It depends on the GM what works and what doesn't. I wouldn't be too fussy about it, because even if any weapon works fine, it still requires time and wouldn't do it fast enough to escape something quickly.
If they have all the time they need, then I would just handwave it. Making them roll over and over again doesn't add anything to the game.
I wouldn't try to be particularly realistic about it, especially for a higher level party.
GM: "sorry, your adamantine greatsword is ineffective against this iron door."
Player: "umm, okay. My weapon can cleave through an Iron Golem with no problem but doesn't work on a plain metal door. Sure."
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I'm in the camp of "Let it happen, martial characters shouldn't get penalized against being able to destroy things". Either that or you just run into situations where your martial characters will carry one weapon for combat, and carry a few mundane weapons for breaking down things. Probably just some sort of club and pick so that they can have "effective" melee weapons.
Either that or you're just going to tell them no melee weapons are effective, which is kind of crappy. So basically after 1st level when their gold isn't limited they'll either buy the weapons that you've deemed are effective, or you'll have deemed no weapons effective. Are you really worried about what probably amounts to a 20 gp gold tax on martial characters? Just let them use their weapons. If you want to be a little more "real" then say that unless they use the correct type of weapon, they only deal half damage. That's penalty enough on it's own, as it costs more time. And if time isn't an issue, then there was never really going to be a problem anyways. They would have "infinite" time to figure out how to get through it.
And, as someone else mentioned, the alternative is worse. As you would be relegating martial characters narratively ineffective while allowing magic to continue to solve any problems. Stone door or wall in the way? Shape stone! Sure it costs a limited resource, but it's something that martial characters couldn't do at all. And there's already enough of that, we don't need to add "can't break down door" to the list.
Edit: Also in regards to weapons breaking, a barbarian can go their whole career with the same weapon without ever being required to repair or even sharpen their weapon. Basically, unless the rules specify a weapon takes damage, it doesn't. And there's really no reason to say a weapon breaks trying to break a door down as opposed to trying to destroy an iron golem.
It's not exactly in the rules but you could give each item a damage type (eg rope / slashing). If the weapon you're using doesn't deal the listed damage type then the object's effective hardness is doubled. If you wanted you could rule that axes get treated as slashing and bludgeoning when it comes to damaging an object (since it's what axes are designed to do).
Additionally, you could rule that whenever you are attacking an object then the hardness of what you're using is compared against the hardness of the target. Which ever object has the lowest hardness is the one that takes the damage rolled. If the hardness is the same then the damage gets applied to both items.
With these two rules in place if you have an iron door/bludgeoning and someone hacks away at it with their adamantine sword they will make progress, but there's a chance their sword might break before they finish hacking through the door.
Edit: Also in regards to weapons breaking, a barbarian can go their whole career with the same weapon without ever being required to repair or even sharpen their weapon. Basically, unless the rules specify a weapon takes damage, it doesn't. And there's really no reason to say a weapon breaks trying to break a door down as opposed to trying to destroy an iron golem.
I expect most of the repair/sharpening of the sword is taken place in the background for anyone that is proficient with their weapons, or when having a magic weapon is common, magic takes care of the whole 'remaining sharp' issue.
But good luck taking on an iron golem with a non-magical weapon. I am sure it can be done with a sufficiently powerful build ... but is probably a bad idea.
The ranged weapon damage rule is irrelevant to this question. Unless you're throwing the greatsword at the door...?
A greatsword is a poor choice for damaging a door, adamantine or no. I'd be inclined to allow half damage to the door and half to the weapon. On a natural 1, full damage to the weapon. Using weapons for non-weapon purposes is dicey and risks damaging them. You'd be better off carrying a crowbar, axe, hammer, or traveler's any-tool for such purposes.
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This is a game where casters can shape and reshape the very cosmos itself, but martial characters can't be expected to kick down doors or shatter stone without people complaining about how unrealistic it is. Apparently Pathfinder martials don't even rise to the level of an action movie star...
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"Destroying a Door Through Hit Point Damage "... well, is it fun?
Yes? Allow it. make up rules for doing it... and let the monsters do it too.
No? don't allow it. make up rules for WHY it can't be done and stick to them (realizing that the Players will come up with workarounds to any obstacle put in their path. In fact, just stating that it can't be done will get the PCs working on HOW to do it...).
A side note on the "hammer and pick" for digging thru rock - this is not the pick many people are thinking of...
The symbol represents the traditional tools of the miner, a hammer and a chisel on a handle, similar to a pickaxe, but with one blunt end. They are pictured in the way a right-handed worker would lay them down: the pick with the point to the right and the handle to the lower left, the hammer with the handle to the lower right and the head to the upper left. The handle of the pick protrudes over the head, because the head is not permanently fixed, but can be swapped for a newly sharpened head when it is blunt from use."
They are normally used in hard rock mining by placing the pick (or chisel) against the rock face and striking it with the hammer. Picks are NOT used by swinging them against the rock face. So... it's really only in fantasy is a pick used to dig thru rock.
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Edit: Also in regards to weapons breaking, a barbarian can go their whole career with the same weapon without ever being required to repair or even sharpen their weapon. Basically, unless the rules specify a weapon takes damage, it doesn't. And there's really no reason to say a weapon breaks trying to break a door down as opposed to trying to destroy an iron golem.I expect most of the repair/sharpening of the sword is taken place in the background for anyone that is proficient with their weapons, or when having a magic weapon is common, magic takes care of the whole 'remaining sharp' issue.
But good luck taking on an iron golem with a non-magical weapon. I am sure it can be done with a sufficiently powerful build ... but is probably a bad idea.
It would be challenging, but not insurmountable. The important part isn't about the challenge of fighting it though, the important part is that doing so causes no damage to your weapon. Even if it's a basic steel non-magical weapon.
My post there was to try to dissuade anyone form unfairly penalizing martial characters for trying to break down a door with their weapon, but applying damage to their weapons.
As for sharpening. There is actually a sharpening stone. It has a mechanical effect of increase your damage by 1 for 1 attack. So as far as mechanics are concerned, a sharp sword is worth +1 damage, but it only lasts for 1 attack.
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It would be challenging, but not insurmountable. The important part isn't about the challenge of fighting it though, the important part is that doing so causes no damage to your weapon. Even if it's a basic steel non-magical weapon.
You are correct, that there is no rule calling out that using a non-magical steel weapon against an iron golem (or stone golem) results in damage to a weapon. Realistically, however, no one is going up against them without a magic weapon and living to tell the tale. Unless they run, or have other methods to fall back on.
My post there was to try to dissuade anyone form unfairly penalizing martial characters for trying to break down a door with their weapon, but applying damage to their weapons.
Unfairly penalizing? The rules say that certain types of weapons are ineffective against stone/metal objects. Without clarifying exactly which ones, it leaves it up to GM discretion. If I (as a GM) say the weapon is ineffective and the player persists in their attempts, I am not going to tell them they CANNOT do something, but that there will be consequences. At that point, their weapon taking damage (which can be done through enemies attempting to sunder their weapon) is not an "unfair" solution. I can respect your opinion of fairness while disagreeing with it.
As for sharpening. There is actually a sharpening stone. It has a mechanical effect of increase your damage by 1 for 1 attack. So as far as mechanics are concerned, a sharp sword is worth +1 damage, but it only lasts for 1 attack.
I am aware of the sharpening stone, and it's relative uselessness. I was speaking more along the lines of simply maintaining your weapon as if there was some level of realism going on. Magically enhanced weapons (thus, outside the realm of 'realism') may never need maintenance because of their nature.
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I remember one homebrew campaign where the 3rd-level party was exploring a small, apparently abandoned tower on the beach reputed to be a meeting point for slave traders. When the fighter and my alchemist stepped through the portculis, it slammed down. My alchemist made a Reflex save to dive outside, but the fighter failed. So, we had one fighter trapped in the killbox of the tower, with hidden archers shooting arrows at him through slits. Trying to lift the portculis failed, so his only escape was bashing through the portculis or the metal door to the interior. The portculis had more hit points than the door and no-one else in the party had high strength.
We looked up the numbers. Iron door: hardness 10, hit points 60, break DC 28. The fighter had a +3 strength bonus, so two-handing a longsword gave 1d8+4 damage. If he rolled a 7 or 8, then some damage got past the hardness. The critical hits were more valuable, since they gave 2d8+8 damage. He was fighting defensively (due to the arrows) and the door's AC was 5, so he hit on a 3 or higher. Therefore, his damage per turn came out to 1.13.
Fortunately, due to some lucky crits, he needed only 20 turns to smash through the door rather than 53 turns. Through the bars of the portculis my alchemist handed him all the healing potions and infusions available, and occasionally bombed an arrow slit to slow down the archers. The other party members searched for another entrance.
Realistically, a sword should not smash a door, but more realistic methods are not well covered in the rules and would have required more time to prepare. We were desperate and the GM allowed it. Maybe the old door was rusty. We could have tried a log on the beach as a battering ram, if we found a good log. Pathfinder would treat it as an improvised greatclub, -4 to hit (i.e., no fighting defensively) and 1d10+4 damage. Due to fewer crits, the battering ram log would deal only 1.26 damage per turn, barely an improvement and less defensive.
Realistically, a sword should not smash a door, but more realistic methods are not well covered in the rules and would have required more time to prepare. We were desperate and the GM allowed it. Maybe the old door was rusty. We could have tried a log on the beach as a battering ram, if we found a good log. Pathfinder would treat it as an improvised greatclub, -4 to hit (i.e., no fighting defensively) and 1d10+4 damage. Due to fewer crits, the battering ram log would deal only 1.26 damage per turn, barely an improvement and less defensive.
Using a large log as a battering ram would definitely be an improvised weapon, but an almost ideal type of weapon to attack a door or portcullis. It would not be 'unfair' to double the damage such an item was able to do to the object in question, especially if several people used it once.
I would rule it impossible unless the weapon is harder than the target. Equal hardness, the damage is going to show on the smaller object first--the weapon.
I would be inclined to say that slashing weapons are going to be basically ineffective against flat surfaces.
I don't even understand how you can critical a solid surface.
So steel can't break glass because class has a higher hardness.
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I would rule it impossible unless the weapon is harder than the target. Equal hardness, the damage is going to show on the smaller object first--the weapon.
I would be inclined to say that slashing weapons are going to be basically ineffective against flat surfaces.
I don't even understand how you can critical a solid surface.
So steel can't break glass because class has a higher hardness.
You might want to rethink that rule.
Hardness in Pathfinder does not mean the Mohs index of hardness, where steel has hardness 4.5 and glass has hardness 5.5. Instead, it means how much the material resists damage. The table Substance Hardness and Hit Points says that glass has hardness 1 and steel and iron have hardness 10.
However, let's face it: in real life a leather-tipped wooden battering ram bound in iron rings to prevent splitting can bash through an iron door. A steel file can have a hardened rasping surface (Mohs index 7.5) that can cut through an ordinary steel bar, but it can be broken by the steel head of a hammer. Pathfinder calls all these tools steel and nothing but steel. The ability to resist damage from other weapons is different from the ability to resist damage from its intended use.
And adding damage to weapons from ordinary use opens a gigantic amount of bookkeeping that would grind combat to a halt. If we want iron golems to break unenchanted swords used against them, then add that as an ability of iron golems.
You are correct, that there is no rule calling out that using a non-magical steel weapon against an iron golem (or stone golem) results in damage to a weapon. Realistically, however, no one is going up against them without a magic weapon and living to tell the tale. Unless they run, or have other methods to fall back on.
It doesn't matter that no PC character is likely to fight an iron golem without a magical weapon, the important part is that doing so does not by the rules innately damage their weapon, regardless of the kind of weapon.
My post there was to try to dissuade anyone form unfairly penalizing martial characters for trying to break down a door with their weapon, by applying damage to their weapons.
Unfairly penalizing? The rules say that certain types of weapons are ineffective against stone/metal objects. Without clarifying exactly which ones, it leaves it up to GM discretion. If I (as a GM) say the weapon is ineffective and the player persists in their attempts, I am not going to tell them they CANNOT do something, but that there will be consequences. At that point, their weapon taking damage (which can be done through enemies attempting to sunder their weapon) is not an "unfair" solution. I can respect your opinion of fairness while disagreeing with it.
Yes, unfairly penalizing. Perhaps I was unclear. It's fair for a GM to rule the weapon deals no damage while attempting to sunder the door (although I also disagree but it's a separate issue). It's not fair to say the attempt damages their weapon (because it's not in the rules). At the very least as a GM you should tell the player "Your character knows that this type of weapon is ineffective, and attempting to use it in this manner would damage it" as the character would know that kind of information, even if the player doesn't. Otherwise you're pulling a gotcha that isn't written in the rules.
Yes, unfairly penalizing. Perhaps I was unclear. It's fair for a GM to rule the weapon deals no damage while attempting to sunder the door (although I also disagree but it's a separate issue). It's not fair to say the attempt damages their weapon (because it's not in the rules). At the very least as a GM you should tell the player "Your character knows that this type of weapon is ineffective, and attempting to use it in this manner would damage it" as the character would know that kind of information, even if the player doesn't. Otherwise you're pulling a gotcha that isn't written in the rules.
Oh, I see. An assumption was made that I wouldn't warn the character of the consequences of their actions. That was incorrect. We can move along now.
Oh, I see. An assumption was made that I wouldn't warn the character of the consequences of their actions. That was incorrect. We can move along now.
I don't know if this was intentional on your behalf, but as an FYI this comes across as rude.
You're previous post to me read as though you wouldn't clearly warn them it would damage their weapon, before having it do so. We may have misunderstood one another, but your above post is dismissively rude. Also, I do apologize in advance if I've misread your tone.
Anyways, it's still worth discussing about whether or not melee weapons should be allowed to break down the door. I made my points above as to why it should be allowed, regardless of the kind of weapon and I can summarize below:
1) If you're going to allow any weapon to effectively break down the door, then the PC needs to merely spend a small amount of gold and carry the right weapon with them. If you want to force this...I guess go ahead. But it's a lot more fun for the PCs if they can use their normal weapon to heroically break down the door. Especially when the "effective weapons" are going to cost less than 20 gp and carry weight is mostly negligible for most melee characters.
2) If no weapons are effective you've taken narrative ability out of the hands of martial characters and are allowing it to only be done by casters.
3) If you're worried about it because of "realism", you should stop letting anyone use magic. The game is unrealistic, and doesn't attempt realism. Stop holding non-magic characters to the standard of realism but allowing casters to bypass it.
Please note the arguments have nothing to with you in particular, and are merely a summation of my arguments why you should allow a melee character to use any weapon to break down door or walls (potentially at a penalty of 1/2 or 1/4 damage for effectiveness if you really feel it's necessary).
Also, this isn't to say such an action shouldn't have consequence. It should be loud, attract attention, and take time.
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Just let them hack the g@+&&!n door with any weapon of their choosing. It's a lot better than the alternative, which is to force your martial characters to sit in the corner and do nothing while the wizard solves the problem in 6 seconds with a spell (in this case, Knock).I think I know what you're trying to imply: the we should just let players fly and jump 200 foot chasms just because they can't... ...
Sarcasm or not, this strawman of my point is pretty poor. You might not know this, but regular people are able to break stone. Regular people aren't able to fly and jump 200 ft chasms. That said, the characters we play in this game, aren't regular people. They are EXTRAORDINARY people, with EXTRAORDINARY abilities. The fact that you think something possible for regular people is somehow an issue for EXTRAORDINARY people, is problematic.
My major point here, is that anything a regular person could do, is something I would mostly handwave a PC doing. Or at least allow an attempt without penalty.
but I am not letting them hack through any door they want with any weapon they want just because the alternative is allowing a character who prepared a spell or bought a resource or planned ahead 6 seconds to do so. Sorry, your whip (even your lethal damage whip) or spiked chain isn't going to work just because you decided to focus your entire character on being a whip user. Buy a crowbar.
If your players seriously whine and threaten to sit in a corner when you say there's a locked door and the wizard actually gets a chance to cast a knock spell they have prepared because you're taking away their schtick of dealing damage (conveniently forgetting that they can deal damage in almost every encounter in an adventure unless there's absolutely no combat in it), then that's being petulant.
Wizard:"Hey, I can cast my knock spell finally. I didn't know if it would come in...
Can you not see the issue here is endemic of a greater problem? Martial characters have preciously few ways to interact with the narrative of a story, while casters have every tool available.
If the party wants to track down an item, the caster can cast Scrying, Locate Object, or any other number of divinations to help find it. What can the Fighter do besides sit in a corner and twiddle his thumbs?
If the party wants to sneak into a dangerous area and recover said item, the Wizard can cast Invisibility in order to bypass any guards, and escape with Dimension Door/Teleport/Word of Recall. What can the Fighter do besides sit in a corner and twiddle his thumbs?
If the party gains audience with the king and needs to curry his favor , then the caster can cast things like Charm Person, or even Dominate Person, to turn the King into their puppet. What can the Fighter do besides sit in a corner and twiddle his thumbs?
Now, obviously, you might point to skills. A Fighter could attempt to track items with Survival and Perception. They could attempt to elude capture with Stealth and Sleight of Hand. They could attempt to curry favor with the Kind using Bluff and Diplomacy. And they could even attempt to open locked doors using Disable Device.
The problem with all of these options is that they all suck compared to the magical solution, which more often than not, completely bypasses the problem. Worse still, even when skills are useful, the Fighter gets literally no bonuses to using them in any meaningful way, while the caster can cast a myriad of spells to boost their skill checks into the stratosphere.
Need a Perception check? The caster can cast Acute Senses for a +30 bonus. Need a Bluff check? Glibness does the same. Then there's stuff like Focused Scrutiny, which boosts all of the nominal "face" skills, or Tears to Wine, which boosts all INT and WIS skill checks.
In the game of skills, the only thing that matters is who has the highest bonus. Everyone else literally need not apply. The Fighter, who gets no in class boosts to any of his skills, is often relegated to sitting in a corner, and twiddling his thumbs.
So when it comes down to it, 2/3 of Pathfinder is problem solving, with only 1/3 of it being combat. If you relegate the Fighter to only being useful in combat, then for the other 2/3 of the game, the fighter generally isn't having fun. Mind you, the Fighter has massive issues even being useful while inside of combat if they aren't an archer or aren't being carried by the team.
And that's the problem here. You are shrinking the tiny amount of power the Fighter has to solve problems via HP damage, and instead relegating it to just another spell the caster can cast. Casters can already do everything, even combat, better than Fighters can. Why not at least let Fighters do this?
What's worse is that the restriction doesn't even make sense from a gameplay perspective, as another poster pointed out. If a weapon isn't suitable to cut a door made out of stone or wood, why would it suddenly be suitable to cut a golem made of the same material? Do items now take damage when you attack a golem? What about an animated object? Are you telling me I can attack an animated door more easily than I can attack a regular door, or do my weapons take damage when I attack those too? Seriously, it's f%@+ing ludicrous to not allow characters to break down doors.
I don't know if this was intentional on your behalf, but as an FYI this comes across as rude.
It was certainly not intended to be rude. Dismissive, possibly, but not rude. If you find the language rude, than I apologize you feel that way. I was merely seeking to move along after the misunderstanding was identified.
I did not feel it necessary (and still do not) to "clearly" explain what my warning of consequences would be. I expect that if a player was warned of consequences, they would inquire as to the possible consequences. If they don't, well ... Nothing teaches better than a little bit of trauma, in small doses. Hearing their weapon 'crack' as it gains the broken condition might push them to think a bit more in the future. It would be a minor annoyance, but easily repairable.
No one is arguing that the game needs to be perfectly realistic, so it is not really productive to make arguments about why a martial should be able to cut through a door like a hot knife through butter (excuse my exaggeration) and why magic users shouldn't be able to use magic if the martials can not. The rules exist and leave it open to interpretation for the GM. I merely stated what I would do. At this point, I feel no further need to defend my interpretation.
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". . . A cliff, I hit it with my longsword until we can walk up the slope... What? You expect me to carry a rope?!"
I'm so saving this part for the next "paizo y u not let fiter chop mountain" thread that I forget to ignore.
No one is arguing that the game needs to be perfectly realistic, so it is not really productive to make arguments about why a martial should be able to cut through a door like a hot knife through butter (excuse my exaggeration) and why magic users shouldn't be able to use magic if the martials can not. The rules exist and leave it open to interpretation for the GM. I merely stated what I would do. At this point, I feel no further need to defend my interpretation.
I'm going to focus on the issue here.
No one is suggesting "hot knife through butter". I'm suggesting that you allow PCs to deal damage to whatever with their weapons, and proceed to chop through the door's HP. A basic wooden door has hardness 5 and 10 hp. Is it really a problem that the barbarian wants to use their greatsword instead of an axe to chop through it? If the axe can cut through it and apply damage against it's hp through it's hardness, is it really such a problem to allow it with a different weapon type?
No one is suggesting "hot knife through butter"...
Hence the "excuse my exaggeration".
Is it really a problem that the barbarian wants to use their greatsword instead of an axe to chop through it? If the axe can cut through it and apply damage against it's hp through it's hardness, is it really such a problem to allow it with a different weapon type?
Overall? No, it is not a problem. The issue comes down to how you want to play.
Low levels, with non-magical weapons, attempting to chop down a wood door with a greatsword is going to be a little difficult (read: very). A few more levels, with a magic weapon, not so difficult (read: takes a bit of time, but do-able). Even a magical, adamantine weapon is going to take a LONG time to cut through a wall.
Perhaps it comes down to encouraging the players to think of different ways to approach their problem, other than with "I hit it with my weapon (or kinetic blast) until the HP goes away". If some level of realism doesn't fit your playstyle (and that is accounting for the existence of magic), I would suggest that our playstyles are incompatible.
However, let's face it: in real life a leather-tipped wooden battering ram bound in iron rings to prevent splitting can bash through an iron door. A steel file can have a hardened rasping surface (Mohs index 7.5) that can cut through an ordinary steel bar, but it can be broken by the steel head of a hammer. Pathfinder calls all these tools steel and nothing but steel. The ability to resist damage from other weapons is different from the ability to resist damage from its intended use.I was thinking of things like using swords against walls--basically improvised tools. You are talking about tools specifically engineered for the job, of course they work, no need to check hardness.
Yet Pathfinder does not describe the tools for the job of opening a secure door, except for lockpicks and siege weapons. If I said that my character was carrying around a hardened steel chisel and a mallet for opening steel doors, or a fireman's axe for chopping through wooden doors, what numbers would I use? Thus, we end up adapting the rules for handheld weapons whose damage is based on how well they hurt flesh rather than chip stone or bend iron.
The rules as written give us weapon damage, and the GM is allowed to modify it by common sense, "No, you cannot destroy the iron door by slashing it with a rapier." But since the rules do not directly address the appropriate tools for chopping through a door, we improvise as we see fit, i.e. expect different results from different GMs. I believe in a generous flexibility to allow some of the weapons available. For example, I would say, "Axes and hammers are fine. Finesseable blades are not. A greatsword is like an axe, but it is not built for such impacts, so if you roll a natural 1, it takes the damage instead of the door."
If you're worried about them breaking through things find a way to secure things that doesn't involve just doors.
As for how much time it takes...well I can't tell you since it will depend on the characters in your campaign and I have no idea what their stats are. Going back to the simple wooden door, if you're PC can deal 15 damage in one attack it can sunder the door in one mighty blow.
Also, if you don't think time isn't a balance on the martial characters, you probably need to add more things that happen around the PCs. An example of what I mean:
The party is in a dungeon busting down doors instead of quietly disabling the locks. Two rooms later they find they're greeted by all the enemies within earshot whom decided to get together and prepared their ranged weapons and set up some cover to hide behind and placed oil on the floor to make it slippery/difficult terrain.
And, if for some reason there is nothing in the game world to react to the PCs....well you're the GM.
If a Level 1 NPC Warrior has more than 12 STR, it too is extraordinary. An average person's STR is 10, while 12 is above-average. Anything more than that is extraordinary.
While an NPC with a Greatsword could theoretically whittle away at an iron door (better than tunneling through Shawshank with a spoon or filing away iron bars with a nail sharpener), it would take a prohibitively long time, and more than likely attract unwanted attention.
A single inch of iron has 30 HP and Hardness 10. If you want a door to be difficult to get through, you could make it of an unknown thickness to dissuade attacks (It's not like your party knows how thick any given door is, so you can keep its health secret pretty easily). Or better yet, treat all doors as Adamantine, with hardness 20. By the time the party is strong enough to deal with that, the wizard should likely already have teleportation or other methods of bypassing doors.
At any rate, yes, Doors have Break DCs. From my reading of it, these Break DCs basically allow you to burst down the door with a single standard action so long as you make the requisite STR check. Such a thing is way more efficient than attempting to hack through the door for multiple rounds with no real way of knowing how much longer it will take.
But Doors also have Hardness and HP for a reason. I would totally allow a player to hack down a door if they so choose, and if it's something that Fighters can do at early levels that the wizard can't do as easily until later on, then I'm more than fine with that bit of early niche protection staying in the game.
As an aside, Level 5 Martial Artist Monks literally have the ability to ignore hardness and DR with Exploit Weakness, so... yeah.
Also, if you don't think time isn't a balance on the martial characters, you probably need to add more things that happen around the PCs.The PCs are in the middle of a combat with the cultists. However, there's only one hallway between them and the cultists which the PCs are filling with Create Pit and Grease spells -- so far the cultists haven't been able to do much and won't be able to for several minutes at the current rate.
Oh, that's easy. The cultist take a ladder leaning against the wall, or a table in the room, or something, and place it over the pit and on top of the grease. There are options to make sure that PCs don't just have minutes of free time to hack down the door.
We looked up the numbers. Iron door: hardness 10, hit points 60, break DC 28. The fighter had a +3 strength bonus, so two-handing a longsword gave 1d8+4 damage. If he rolled a 7 or 8, then some damage got past the hardness. The critical hits were more valuable, since they gave 2d8+8 damage. He was fighting defensively (due to the arrows) and the door's AC was 5, so he hit on a 3 or higher. Therefore, his damage per turn came out to 1.13.
Fortunately, due to some lucky crits, he needed only 20 turns to smash through the door rather than 53 turns.
First, objects are immune to crits.
Ah, my GM, the fighter's player, and I had missed that rule. A keyword search found it in the Additional Rules chapter of the Core Rulebook in the Smashing Objects section: "Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and to critical hits."
I wonder whether that applies to the Sunder combat maneuver, too?
Second, imagine if he was a level 1 human fighter with "only" 18 strength.
6 (from strength) + 3 (power attack) + 7 (greatsword) = 16 average damage per hit.
He'd still smash through that door very quickly.
My comment was #17 in this thread. Other people had already explained the rules and the gaps in the rules. My goal was to illustrate the rules in practice with a story from an actual game, because theorycrafting tends to view everything as optimized. Not all PCs are well optimized. The fighter did not have Strength 18, he did not know Power Attack, and he did not wield a greatsword. The GM had based the campaign on a novel and the adventure was not well-balanced for Pathfinder rules; hence, it had a killbox situation that was too difficult a challenge for our level.
At an average of 16 damage per hit, smashing through a 60-hit-point iron door with hardness 10 would take 10 rounds. By some standards, one minute is quickly. Stuck locked in a room with archers shooting, one minute is lengthy.
What's the point of having a variety of doors (and different break DCs for the doors) if it's so simple to just destroy them in a few rounds? Why should a level 1 party be able to break down any door in existence in the span of a few minutes? DCs on breaking down doors range from 13 to 28 -- and I don't think any character can reasonably hit a DC28 strength check at level 1. But many characters would easily beat 10 damage per swing with a 2H weapon and/or Power Attack.
Yes, this is vital question in game design. Secure doors are designed to stop intruders, so why don't they stop the PCs? It is a deliberate plot weakness, because the game designers don't want the PCs stopped by something as boring as a barred door. The in-game excuse is that Strength 16 is considered very strong, even for a soldier, and Strength 18 or 20 is extraordinary.
Except that sometimes, we GMs do want the PCs stopped. In The Divinity Drive, the 6th module of Iron Gods, one door in the first section leads to a fatal encounter to a party that has not leveled up and prepared for the encounter. It is a heavy-duty adamantine door almost impossible to break through. The Iron Gods subforum has a few descriptions of how the party busted through the door or adjacent wall anyways, and either died or ran away. Or as in my story, the keep on the coast was based on a non-adventuring story, so it had a door that intruders should not have been able to break through in time, except that we had the Pathfinder rules wrong and allowed critical hits on objects.
If Pathfinder had a tool known as a door-smashing axe that was deliberately designed to chop through wooden doors, and adventurers made sure to carry one, then the GM could put wooden doors where the PCs could go and metal doors were the PCs couldn't.
The Axe* is the best weapon.
* Benefit: You rock stuff well.
Fixed that for you!
Pack a crowbar. It's the martial equivalent of a scroll of knock, but way cheaper.
Pack a crowbar. It's the martial equivalent of a scroll of knock
It's sad how true this is.